Thursday, May 1, 2014

Two years ago I reviewed a precursor to this book, by Eileen
R. Tabios and j/j hastain, titled the
relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA (New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2012;
ISBN: 978-0-9846353-2-0). The book impressed upon the reader the function to
carry forth the work begun in its pages, which I endeavored to do in the
review.

147 Million Orphans takes
as its basis, not the word problems of the previous title, but a list of words
that Tabios’ son was required to learn in the course of a school year. Ever
innovative and groundbreaking, Tabios, and her impressive list of guest poets (William Allegrezza, Tom Beckett, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Patrick James Dunagan, Thomas Fink, jj hastain, Aileen Ibardaloza, Ava Koohbor, Michael Leong, Sheila Murphy and Jean Vengua),
used the words to create hay(na)ku [from the back cover: “a hay(na)ku is a
diasporic poetic form; its core is a tercet-based stanza with the first line
being one word, the second line being two words, and the third line being three
words”], which are then followed by additional text, to form a “haybun.”

In the years that I have been reading and reviewing Tabios’
work, I have been continually awed and propelled in my own work by her
commitment to the writer’s role as social voice, conveying both unique media
and social justice messages that resonate with the reader in a compelling dance
that requires and inspires action. Like the work of a gifted playwright or
screenwriter, the truth here is clear: if the reader’s relationship with the
words ends when the book is closed, there is something lacking—like fruit that
is not eaten, like seeds that are not planted [and watered and cultivated], it
becomes Momentary; a Fragment without Function.

The politics of Diaspora, of the life of the orphan, of the
empty rhetoric and nefarious policies of multinational corporations and
educational systems that fall far short of their potential to produce
independent and critical thinkers, all converge in the genesis of the source
material [the vocabulary words] into Art and Authentication.

Compelling notions such as this continue: “Adoption is an
industry, as commercial as the polyethylene commodities travelling on ship
tankers from China…” [pg. 13]. Or

“no child should learn to be grateful for an effect of
loss.” [pg. 15]

But there is always counterpoint, yin and yang, light in
dark: “Many adoptive parents feel: I
didn’t save a child. A child saved me” [pg. 23].

I humbly count myself among those parents.

Within most of the haybun is the thought-provoking use of
the line strikethrough, such as in this piece by Aileen Ibardaloza:

“‘exploit’ can also mean abuse misuse” [pg. 47].

A peek behind the patterns of the process. An invocation of
Mark Twain’s “The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the
difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.” But is there more than
one “right word”? Abuse and misuse evoke completely separate meanings. One normally
disappears, but here it still remains, to work upon the reader’s mind, ripe
with layered nuance.

On page 58 appears a line that I have been mulling over for
days: “The grammatical period is not
synonymous with death.”

Think about it. Write about it. Set out to authenticate or
eradicate it as a notion, an idea. Let it be both at one and the same time.
That is the value of Tabios’ approach to poetry. It is collaborative. Its
Authority gives it room to be pushed, pulled, reinvented.

The book closes with “A Quintet for Michael Gerard Tyson,”
offering insight into the enigmatic (and, as I learned here, orphaned) former
heavyweight champ, whose antics and actions outside the ring engulfed and all
but obliterated his achievements within it.

In a bit of synchroserendipity, I read the line “he denies
the ‘I’ and lapses into calling himself ‘Sonny Liston’ and ‘Jack Dempsey’” mere
hours before reading in Secret Germany
by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh excerpts from Thomas Mann’s 1936 essay on
“mythic consciousness” regarding the idea that leaders and would-be leaders
refer to themselves as past leaders in order to acquire Legitimacy through Invocation
and a pseudo-lineage [think Thatcher as Churchill and Elizabeth I and Clinton
as Kennedy].

I encourage you to read 147
Million Orphans as poetry, as parental testament, as social commentary, as
thought experiment, and most importantly, as the starting point for your own
[continuing] engagement with Word and Idea.